Best known for his band Polara and his extensive engineering and production work (the Jayhawks, Motion City Soundtrack, Soul Asylum), Ed Ackerson decided to take a more anonymous approach with his latest project, BNLX.

Starting in 2010, he issued a series of four-song EPs, written and recorded with his wife, Ashley, and filled with short, sharp songs influenced by post-punk and new wave.

“I really wanted to do something that was anonymous and would stand or fall on its own merit,” Ackerson said. “I really didn’t know if it would be perceived as a departure from (my other work) or if anyone would even care. We thought we would do three EPs, wrap them up and be done with it.”

Instead, BNLX found an appreciative audience in the Cities and beyond. The pair landed at No. 3 on City Pages’ annual best-new-bands poll, Picked to Click, and soon after added a proper drummer, David Jarnstrom. They ended up releasing a total of seven EPs — 28 songs in total — and have just capped it all off with a full-length dubbed “BNLX LP.” They’re celebrating with a two-night stand at Cause in Minneapolis starting Friday, Nov. 16, and featuring four other local bands on the bill each evening.

“It’s hard to get people to pay attention when people think they already know what you do,” Ackerson said. “BNLX is very different in presentation and sound than anything we’d done before. I didn’t want the headline to be ‘Journeyman musician releases new album,’ but instead, ‘What the (expletive) is this?'”

The decision to release an entire album came, in part, from feedback. “We were hearing from people in the industry, ‘These EPs are really great, but when are you going to do a full-length?’ At first, I was really resistant to the idea, that an album is somehow more substantial than the EPs. But then I thought about it, and it’s just another container for the songs.”

In recording the EPs, Ackerson focused on making them high contrast and high impact, with “a nice and poppy song, a funny song, a kind of grim song.” The idea for “LP” was to extend that same idea across a dozen tracks. “There’s no wasted time on the EPs, as we tried to make them extremely fast and coherent. We didn’t want to make something a half hour that felt redundant or dull.”

To that end, “LP” revisits only a pair of songs from BNLX’s past releases, and includes a new take on “Burn the Boats” (“When we started playing that live with our drummer, it changed completely.”) and a slightly reworked “Meet Me on the Barricades” (“We feel like the message of that song is still relevant.”). The other 10 new tracks take the BNLX concept and turn it up just a notch. “The LP is a little more like what I would’ve done in Polara,” Ackerson said. “It’s a little more melodic and conventional, with some more major chords and big choruses.”

The EPs were issued in hand-stamped brown cardboard sleeves, but “LP” arrives in a much slicker package, complete with a cover shot of the Ackersons’ Boston terrier, Wiggy. “We started thinking about it and Wiggy is kind of like another band member,” Ackerson said. “Beyond maybe an hour, he was with us literally every minute we wrote and recorded everything for this band. He’s even gone on tour with us. We wanted to have something on the cover that was very much part of our world, and that’s Wiggy. Plus, it’s time for him to start carrying his weight. You put a picture of a cute puppy on something and it sells more.” (It should be noted that Wiggy started barking at this point in the interview.)

As for BNLX’s future, the Ackersons plan to take the album on tour next year, with an East Coast trek and South by Southwest trip in the plans. And, yes, there will be more EPs in the future, including another devoted to cover versions.

“I will tell you we have plenty more stuff to release,” Ackerson said. “We will take that opportunity, whether or not the requests are there.”

THIS WEEK’S RED HOUSE RECORDS NEWS

St. Paul’s Red House Records continues its second season of live gigs held in conjunction with the Landmark Center on Friday, Nov. 16, with a performance from singer/songwriter Meg Hutchinson. The Boston-based folkie has won numerous awards, including the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and has released a pair of albums on Red House. The acoustic performance will take place in the Landmark’s intimate, 230-seat F.K. Weyerhaeuser Auditorium in downtown St. Paul. The series wraps up Dec. 21 with Peter Ostroushko, whose new three-CD set, “The Mando Chronicles,” comes out Nov. 27.

Another Red House alum, New Jersey native John Gorka, returns to town Saturday to headline the Cedar Cultural Center with his pal Kris Delmhorst. Gorka’s most recent Red House solo album is 2009’s “So Dark You See,” although he followed that one up with “Red Horse,” a collaboration with Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson.

A Minnesota native, Ross Raihala joined the Pioneer Press as pop music critic in 2004, after stints at The Forum in Fargo, N.D., and The Olympian in Olympia, Wash. He covers local and national music as well as some theater and other arts and entertainment topics. His favorite part of his job is reviewing, and live tweeting, Twin Cities arena concerts. And, yes, he saw the same show you did.

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in Things to Do

Throughout the Palace Theatre's first year, plenty of fans have stopped former Mayor Chris Coleman to chat about the onetime vaudeville house that's been transformed into a music venue. They have good things to say.

Danai Gurira kicks butt as Okoye in the hit movie “Black Panther,” but her prowess as a playwright is even more impressive. Inspired by her own immigrant family, the play “Familiar” at the Guthrie Theater is as powerful as a thrust from Okoye’s spear. RELATED: Women of 'Black Panther' take center stage Of course, given the endless arguments over immigration...

First of all, you don't want to go to this exhibit in your stocking feet. It's not sanitary, of course, but also because there are just too many of those little plastic blocks for unprotected feet to navigate without nervousness. The Science Museum of Minnesota's newest visiting exhibition, "Towers of Tomorrow with Lego Bricks," has more than 700,000 Lego pieces...

Cherry blossom festivals, tulip time and lilac season is nearly upon us. Here’s a look at some of the places that celebrate spring flowers with festivals and other events. TULIP TIME You could go to the Netherlands to see the Keukenhof gardens in Lisse, which are planted with 7 million flowering bulbs — tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and more — blooming...

In the midst of its mission to educate and inspire young audiences, Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre Company periodically pauses to deliver a show that seems to have no higher calling than just getting the little kids to giggle. “Corduroy” is such a show. Yes, it’s built upon Don Freeman’s popular picture book about a teddy bear wreaking havoc in a department...